Search form

Main menu

You are here

Award-winning writers headline Hispanic Heritage Month

BLOOMSBURG— Two award-winning writers will speak as part of the month-long Hispanic Heritage Month celebration at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Bilingual poet Manuel A. Lopez talk on the “El arte de perder” or “The Art of Losing” on Monday, Sept. 24 at 6 p.m. in the Kehr Union Building Ballroom 3. That will be followed by a presentation from Nicholas Villanueva, Ph.D., who will talk about “Hispanic Heritage: An Endless Voice Shaping a Bright Future for America” on Wednesday, Oct. 3 at 6 p.m. in Carver Hall, Gross Auditorium.

Lopez is an award-winning bilingual poet, writer, and cultural promoter who came to the United States from Cuba in 1980. His poetry has been published in various magazines such as Anterior Review, Arquitrave, and Dove Tales. His first book of poems titled “Yo, el Arquero Aquel” was published in 2011. In July of 2012, he published a book of short stories titled “Room at the Top” which was published by TheWriteDeal in New York as a digital e-leaf edition.

His book went on to be presented at Miami Book Fair International in November 2013. His latest poetry book, “Los Poetas Nunca Pecan Demasido” also published in 2013, was awarded the gold medal in the Spanish category at the Florida Book Awards.

Villanueva is the director of critical sports studies and assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He published his first book in 2017 titled “Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands.” His book went on to win the 2018 National Association of Chicano & Chicana Studies, Tejas Foco Non-Fiction Book Award, and the 2017 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association, University of Texas at El Paso.

His work contributes to the historical work on lynching, global perspectives of violence, and borderland studies by differentiating between the lynching of African Americans and the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans.

The events are sponsored by the Multicultural Center, Office of Diversity and Retention, Student Organization of Latinos and the Women’s Resource Center.